Heading into the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational, defending champion Scottie Scheffler believes he's right about where he needs to be at this time in the PGA Tour season. And that's despite his late start to the 2025 campaign following a cooking mishap on Christmas Day that ultimately required him to undergo hand surgery.
The world No. 1 ultimately played his first event of the year at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am instead of at The Sentry in Kapulua or The American Express in La Quinta. In 2023, he played four events before coming to Bay Hill. In 2024, he played five. This year, though, he's played only three.
“I think it's challenging any time you're coming off an injury,” Scheffler said in his pre-tournament press conference. “That first time you step back out inside the ropes, it's different playing competition tournament golf, and there's definitely challenges to it, and it takes a little bit of time to get used to.”
Scottie Scheffler sure sounds confident heading into Bay Hill
Results in his first three events were respectable. He tied for ninth at Pebble Beach, tied for 25th at the WM Phoenix Open, and then tied for third at The Genesis Invitational, which was played at Torrey Pines in San Diego instead of at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades due to the wildfires in the Los Angeles area.
“I feel caught up,” he said, adding that he had two "really nice" weeks to get ready for the Arnold Palmer.
“It was not rushed to start Pebble,” he added, “but it was definitely quicker than my offseason prep usually is, just by nature of the injury.”
He said that having some time at home after playing was helpful because he could “continue to work on my body and get ready to come back out and play.”
The most important thing for him when he was able to start practicing again was to make sure he didn’t get into any bad habits with his grip, stance, posture, or swing due to the injury. He focused particularly on the grip, and he’s not the only golfer who has stressed the importance of a proper grip in golf.
Bobby Jones, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, and Gary Player are just four who are on record with the significance of the grip. It’s the grip, after all, that controls the angle of the clubface as it strikes the ball. That dictates where the ball is going to go. It’s all part of a series of links in a chain to a good golf game.
“That was the first thing we looked for when I started hitting balls again was to make sure that I wasn't going to adjust to it,” Scheffler explained. “Because I had an injury to my right hand, my right hand is pretty dang important to the golf swing.”
The two-time Masters champ said that he made sure that he didn’t come back too soon from the kitchen catastrophe. He was conscious of the fact that many athletes do that, and he didn’t want to be one of them. If he had pain, he might subconsciously or consciously alter his grip or his swing. He knew that the worst thing would have been to come back too soon and reinjure the hand.
He wanted to be certain he was “in a comfortable position to where I could hold the club the way I want to and then swing the way I want to.”
Anyone who watches Scheffler, who's the clear betting favorite at Bay Hill, regularly knows that he constantly watches his grip. Golf experts like to remind us that it is our only connection to the club, which is why a good grip is important. Scheffler said on Wednesday that he uses his grip to adjust to his body's movements our grip each day.
“That's why I use the reminder club as often as I do. It's not a perfect science,” he added. “I think we have an understanding that you're not going to be perfect every week and a lot of times during the tournament week when it's time to go compete.”
Because of that, he finds that whatever his body is doing on Tuesday and Wednesday is probably what he will have the rest of the week.
“It will be pretty rare for the light bulb to just go off on Wednesday afternoon,” he said.